What Are We Selling?

By Bob Glaves | CBF Executive Director

It seems a simple question to ask, but one we do not think enough about in law and too often answer incorrectly. Getting that answer right is the first essential step towards carrying out my New
Year’s Resolution for 2019 for the legal profession to tackle our
affordability problem for everyday people.

Two recent commentaries in the New York Times and the Atlantic challenge us to re-examine our profession’s longstanding assumptions on this question, and offer a good jumping off point for discussion.

When and Why Does Someone Need a Lawyer?

These two articles highlight the fact that people today have a lot
more choices beyond turning to a lawyer when they face a legal issue. And if
our profession does not recognize this reality and offer people credible
guidance and realistic options, people increasingly will choose the option of
forgoing lawyers altogether.

The second article, The DIY Divorce in the Atlantic, is a first person account of a professional woman going through the divorce process who managed to do it almost completely on her own. Her situation—involving more sophisticated litigants, balanced power dynamics, and limited issues in dispute—is a great example of where limited scope representation from a lawyer can help someone successfully complete the process far more affordably.

While the Atlantic author did in fact benefit from limited
scope legal help in the form of some good coaching, her assumption that seeking
further help from a lawyer automatically would cost at least $30,000 (and
between $15,000 and $25,000 had she been elsewhere in the country)
unfortunately rings true in the current legal market. And that perception is
not limited to the family law space.

Her story also says a lot about the unnecessary complexity
of the court process, another piece of the affordability puzzle I will discuss
more next month.

We Are Not Selling Our Time

As most lawyers continue to sell their
time, what clients really are looking for is solutions. The
billable hour leads us in the wrong direction right out of the gate,
focusing inwardly on ourselves rather than outwardly on the value we are
providing to clients. Yet it remains the prevalent form of pricing in the legal
market, and lawyers then seem surprised that clients and potential clients
increasingly are turning to other options.

Good lawyers provide solutions to
clients. That may be helping clients resolve a problem, manage a risk, navigate
a difficult situation, or some combination of those services. We should focus
on the
unique value lawyers deliver to help clients reach those solutions by
acting as their counselor and advocate, and guiding them through complex and
uncertain situations.

Two other things that virtually all
clients value are transparency and certainty in pricing, but lawyers once again
are not typically known for either of those things today.

We need to look at new business models that focus on what the client wants and needs, and are marketed and flexibly and transparently priced to align with the value lawyers deliver. In other words, we need to look past one-size fits all service models and say no to billable hour pricing, two of the core principles for the CBF Justice Entrepreneurs Project.

Helping People Understand and Assess Their Legal Issues

With more clarity on what we are
selling, we can do a lot more to help
people
facing legal issues realistically assess their legal needs. When can
people with legal issues do things on their own? When is help from a lawyer
preferable or necessary? And how much lawyer do they need to achieve a just,
yet cost-effective, outcome for their situation?

Along that continuum, lawyers can offer more flexible and affordable options of legal help ranging from information and self-help resources to assessment and coaching to various limited scope representation options to full service. Modern lawyers need to understand these different service options and offer them to potential clients in appropriate cases. If lawyers can’t credibly lead on these evolving practice models, someone else will fill the void. It is already happening.

Taking a Hard Look at How We Market and Deliver Services

It is only after taking the above
steps that we should start looking at how we can deliver our services more
efficiently and effectively. As the great Peter Drucker famously said, “There
is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at
all.”

That said, there is much more we can do to make our services
more accessible, efficient and flexible, an essential aspect of making our
services more affordable. Technology is clearly an integral part of that quest,
and finding
the right balance for how to incorporate it into our business model
will be a core part of every law practice going forward.

So What Are We
Selling?

Once upon a time, lawyers were the gatekeepers to legal
knowledge and the legal system and essentially could market our services as the
solution to any legal problem.

We are a long way from those days, and the starting point for fixing our affordability problem is to look in the mirror and recognize what people need from us is solutions to legal problems where our services as lawyers can help them reach the best outcomes. That is not every legal problem, and when it is, it very often will not require full representation.

New business models that offer flexible service options and value-based pricing will be an integral part of making our services affordable and accessible to the people who need our help. That is what we should be selling.